The European Southern Observatory (ESO) has secured enough funds for the construction of the European Extremely Large Telescope (E-ELT) and has approved the first phase of construction of what is set to become the world’s biggest eye on the sky. It will be located on the slopes of Mount Cerro Amazones in Chile.
“The decision taken by the Council means that the telescope can now be built, and that major industrial construction work for the E-ELT is now funded and can proceed according to plan. There is already a lot of progress in Chile on the summit of Armazones and the next few years will be very exciting,” ESO’s Director General Tim de Zeeuw said in a statement on the official website of the observatory.
The construction of the E-ELT was approved by ESO’s council in June 2012 under the condition that contracts with a value of larger than two million Euros could only be awarded once the total cost of the telescope (1,083 million Euros at 2012 prices) was 90% funded, says the website.
An exception was granted for the civil works at the site, which started with a groundbreaking ceremony in June 2014, and is now making good progress.
The necessary threshold was reached in October, when Poland agreed to join ESO, but the organization decided to split the project into two phases.
90 percent of the project’s costs will now go toward “Phase 1,” which is set to get E-ELT up and running. This funded work includes the contract for the telescope’s dome and main structure, ESC says, which will be awarded in late 2015, and leads to the construction of a fully working E-ELT.
The remaining 10 percent of the costs have been allocated to “Phase 2,” for the development of nonessential elements. This includes parts of the adaptive optics system, some of the instrument work, the innermost five rings of segments of the telescope’s main mirror (210 mirror segments) and a spare set of primary mirror segments needed for operating the telescope more efficiently in the future.
The Phase 2 components will be approved as more funding becomes available. Additional commitments from upcoming Member State Brazil are expected in the coming years, ESO says. The 39-metre E-ELT, the optical/near-infrared telescope, is set to become the world’s largest telescope; it will search for Earth-like planets, measure the Universe’s expansion and take on other scientific challenges.
E-ELT is not the only giant ground-based telescope in the works. The Giant Magellan Telescope (GMT) will soon start taking shape atop Las Campanas, another Chilean peak. GMT will arrange seven 8.4 meter-wide primary mirrors into one light-collecting surface 24 meters across; project officials are aiming for “first light” in 2021.
Additionally, the Thirty Meter Telescope (TMT), which will boast a light-collecting surface 30 meters wide is slated to start observing from Hawaii’s Mauna Kea in 2022. Like E-ELT, TMT’s primary mirror will be composed of hundreds of relatively small segments.
